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Want a learning environment designed around students' learning needs?

Learning Space Design Lab

Roskilde, Denmark

A powerful workshop tool for collaboratively designing and redesigning learning environments based on how children learn, while transforming the shared pedagogical practice through a playful, creative method that mimics great project-based learning.

What is Learning Space Design Lab?

“We are not designing learning environments, we are designing a learning culture.”

Lene Jensby Lange, Founder, Learning Space Design Lab

One innovative teacher might improve their classroom layout and culture, but this is unlikely to have a long term impact on the learning culture of the school. For lasting impact and meaningful change, the whole school community needs to play an active role in changing the culture and design of learning spaces.

Autens is a leading Danish education consultancy, specialising in developing and supporting visionary projects that transform schools into meaningful 21st century places for learning. Autens believes learning should be purposeful, joyful, co-created and personalised, and that learning spaces should be a reflection of this.

Among many endeavours, Autens runs Learning Space Design Labs for educators. In these workshops, all staff come together to co-create a new learning environment on the basis of a shared vision for learning. Staff have the freedom to think, play and create together so that the outcome is as innovative, insightful, shared and inspirational as possible. The design process is hands-on, project-based learning in action, with an authentic, real-world problem that demands a solution.

The workshops have a dual, inter-related purpose: to create design solutions for specific learning spaces and to strengthen a shared learning culture with a very high sense of ownership and empowerment among teachers.

Every person working in the learning space should be involved in the design or redesign. A scaled model of the space is needed, either in 2D or 3D, as well as scaled furniture. Inspirational photos and design tools to guide the team’s understanding of how pedagogy and learning spaces can be linked are also very helpful. Design tools can be obtained from Autens free of charge. Supplementary workshop materials such as playdough, coloured paper, felt, scissors, glue, post-it-notes and pens may be used - whatever encourages creativity and expression!

HundrED Criteria

innovativeness

impact

scalability

Learning Space Design Lab allows teachers to design not just a learning environment, but a learning culture. Instead of static designs, the spaces created are fluid and able to change. These spaces become dynamic tools for pedagogy, didactics, learning and well-being in the hands of teachers and learners.

When teachers are asked to design classrooms or learning spaces using this method, not a single teacher to date has designed a traditional classroom. Thus, the impact of this workshop on challenging & changing mindsets is notably impactful. Through this tactile, playful and collaborative workshop, their beliefs, knowledge and experience are channelled into creative and inspiring solutions. If that wasn’t enough, research shows that learning environments are pivotal in engaging students with their learning; however, this goes hand in hand with changing cultures and practices.

This approach can be used in all types of schools and any space within the school, such as classrooms, learning hubs, staff rooms or offices. Autens have run this workshop in over 20 schools to date!